Cuban-American Representatives Use Castro's Death to Slam Obama-Era Opening

Some of South Florida's Cuban American representatives in Congress: from left to right, former Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Congressman Carlos Curbelo, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart.

Rowan Moore Gerety
/ WLRN

Originally published on November 27, 2016 10:12 pm

As their constituents took to the streets with pots and pans to celebrate Fidel Castro’s death, South Florida’s Cuban-American congressional delegation blasted the Obama administration for the brief diplomatic opening that preceded the dictator’s death.

“The largest financier of Castro right now, has become the Obama administration,” Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart told reporters at a Miami press conference.

Diaz-Balart’s older brother Lincoln, who preceded him in Congress and was an architect of US-Cuba policy in the 1990s, called President Obama the “strongest and most effective” supporter of the Castro regime’s efforts to “pass on the dictatorship as though it was a family farm.”

“When the regime has been cash-rich, they’ve used those resources to aggressively hurt our interests all over the world,” added Congressman Carlos Curbelo, calling for more support of Cuban dissidents and denouncing any economic activity that involves the Cuban government.

“What we have seen about more interactions, is that this means more interactions and more money for the regime,” said Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, calling on the incoming Trump administration to roll back Obama’s executive actions on Cuba. “Our conditions for the Castro Regime are already set forth in U.S. law: respect for human rights, freeing of all political prisoners, free and fair elections, allowing political parties to form,” Ros-Lehtinen said.

Fidel’s death may be a symbolic victory, she allowed, but could be all it is: “As The Who sang, ‘Meet the old boss, same as the old boss,’” she said, quoting lyrics from the 1971 hit “Won’t Get Fooled Again.“

In some respects, the rhetoric put forward by this quartet of South Florida Republicans sounded closer to that decade than this one. The group was quick to discount any chance of progress stemming from the recent thawing U.S.-Cuba relations, but there was no mention of the trade embargo that has dominated American policy towards the island for more than 50 years—or of the fact that the embargo has at times played into Castro’s portrayal of the U.S. as a malevolent capitalist overlord.

Castro’s detractors remember him in similarly extreme terms. Lincoln Diaz-Balart called Fidel Castro “the brain of evil” while his younger brother described the regime as “the most barbaric, the most corrupt, most savage dictatorship in the history of our hemisphere.”

They’ll find no quarrel from Valdemoro Nieto, 90, who stood in front of La Carreta on Bird Road Saturday morning, basking in the glow of history while passing drivers honked and waved Cuban flags from their windows. Nieto came to the U.S. after 20 years as a political prisoner in Cuba. “Even the ocean is crying today, for all the thousands of people that were killed there,” he said, with tears in his eyes. “Obama gave Castro everything in exchange for nothing. “Trump, Trump, and Trump, once more, will change this country,” he said. “You’ll see.”

Listen to our special coverage of the aftermath of Fidel Castro's death here:

I always had a wonderful time in Fidel Castro's Cuba, and usually wound up feeling bad about it.

The island is beautiful, the people even sunnier: warm and friendly, especially to Americans. The responsables — government minders — assigned to each reporting crew would tease me about being from Chicago.

"Your mobsters used to run this place," they'd say. "Sam Giancana, The Godfather. You made our men bellboys and our women prostitutes." And then they'd treat you to mojitos and fabulous music.

University Beat report on the recent USF Sarasota-Manatee panel discussion on U.S.-Cuba relations.

Under President Barack Obama, U.S. relations with Cuba saw a considerable warm-up, including new airline flights between Tampa and Havana. But now, with the election of Donald Trump as President, some wonder how the relationship between the two countries might change.

USF Sarasota-Manatee recently marked International Education Week with a panel discussion on Cuba, its future, and how the two sides might get along moving forward.